Ardmore Gets More Love From Beam Suntory with New Port Wood Finish

October 12, 2015 – After years of being thought of as a “blender’s malt,” Beam Suntory is focusing more attention on its single malts from Ardmore Distillery in Aberdeenshire with three new releases in the past year. The latest expression is a 12-year-old single malt finished in European Oak half-Port pipes and bottled at 46% ABV.

Ardmore is one of the few Highland distilleries that never stopped using peated malt to make its whiskies, even after other distilleries switched to unpeated malt when they closed their malting floors. Ardmore’s whiskies have been the “fingerprint malt” whisky in the Teacher’s range of blended Scotch whiskies for many years, but until recently, the Ardmore Traditional was the only distillery single malt bottling available. That expression was re-packaged as The Ardmore Tradition earlier this year for the travel retail market after it was replaced as the distillery’s mainstream retail offering by The Ardmore Legacy. At the same time, Beam Suntory released a Triple Wood malt based on the same formula used for co-owned Laphroaig’s Triple Wood, with a formula blended from whisky matured in ex-Bourbon casks, quarter-size casks, and ex-Sherry puncheons.

The Ardmore Port Wood Finish will be available globally through whisky specialist retailers with a recommended retail price of £49.99 GBP ($77 USD) for 700ml bottles. A Beam Suntory executive has confirmed that there are no current plans to make it available for the US market in 750ml bottles.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include details on US availability.